The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-01-07
PANTOMIME SONGS.
ARTISTS" MAKING READY FOR
THE HOLIDAYS IN LONDON.

Good Songs In Abundance and AT Low
Figures-successes i'm the Music Halls.
Wide Differences In the Public Taste.
Political Verses.
The pantomime artists are already CIV
ing to the songs they mean to sing that atten-
ton which outsiders might fancy is only be-
slowed on their dresses. As a matter OF fact,
the dresses, and even the dances, have now
become subjects of secondary consideration.
The chief engagements for the coming season
"signed" by this time; where there Is an
important vacancy it is owing TO some person
engaged having disappointed. Many les
sees engage their complete pantomlme COM
pany early in the summer, and their stars
the Christmas before. 1t is common for the
manager to make round of the principal
provincial theatres during one pantomime
season in hope of getting good thing" for
the next As rule, the comedian who has
the most fetching" topical songs is most
worth looking after; this holding even when
the player is a lady. One song that takes the
popular ear brings more money to the man
ager than ESQ transformation scene, and 1t
is not so much the song that takes as the way
il is sung, the singer who scores" in one pan
tomine win probably repeat his success IN
another.
As profession the writing of pantOmime
songs would not pay. The competition is so
keen that popular singers need not give an
order for a new song; they may go to bed
any night in confidence that a song from
someone is sure to be delivered with their let
tiers in the morning. Thus the singer is pretty
certain to get something that will suit him
sooner or later; and, of course, songs sent for
approval are very cheap. Full rights can
easily be got for a guinea, or even for less.
SUCCESSFUL SONGS.
Tn the other hand, there are well known
SHOPS" for the supply of the article, and the
singer is measured for it, so to speak. The
poet has to write to his customers voice, to
be- patriotic" or topical" or Sentimental"
according to instructions. In most cases he
is both writer and composer; but songs sent
ON approval" generally without music.
Five pounds is good price for a song, even
when IL is ordered of a well-known writer
but once produce popular pantomime song
and the music halls will find you plenty of
employment. The most successful pantomime
song of recent years is music hall ditty, in
which the principal boy says to the principal
girl: "Duclzy darling, ducky darling, l love
you That song overran the pantomimes all
over the country for a year 1t IL dead
enough now; but the composer made a name
by ID, and will doubtless profit thereby for
the next decade. A well-known dramatist
has had some great successes with pantomime
songs, such as "Wst, wst, wst, ;" " hich also was
first heard in the music halls.
The common impression is that the writer
Of the pantomime writes the songs as WE'LL or
at least arranges with the manager what
songs to be introduced at certain points
He has nothing TO do with is The leading
performers are entitled to introduce their
own songs and dances, and that is why two
songs very like each other are often sung in
the same pantomime Ii the local town coun-
Gil has been having a squabble the fact Of the
low Comedians introducing it into his song
does not prevent the principal boys intro
ducing it into his. IL has been said that the
actor who makes himself a name in one
pantomime can generally keep up his reputa
ton. There are, nevertheless, comedians of
one song, as managers occasionally learn to
their cost. The comedians attachment to a
song that has made him popular during the
pantomime season is often remarkable. His
hope is to be allowed to sing it, with new
words, perhaps, in next years pantomime
and the managers remonstrance that ut is
old now has no effect. 1t may be old, hut
at goes down."
THE PUBLIC TASTE
A comic singer whom accident makes the
sole proprietor of a popular song likes to keep
it to himself He is, as a rule, music hall
singer except at pantomime times, and when
his song becomes talked about it is to his adj
vantage that 1t should be coupled with his
name. However. the limitations that at once
spring up are SO like that this exclusiveness
does not always pay, and so he may dispose
OF his rights to one or sixty or fifty other
singers, and thus the same song is sung in the
same way in twenty pantomimes. It does
not, however, take equally we'll in each, and
the fault is not necessarily the singers. Just
times ON one night and fall quite flat the next
i'm the same theatre, 80 the public taste in one
town differs from the public taste in an
other. Players who have been long on the
"road" know, or at least plume themselves on
knowing, how to adapt themselves to the
tastes of different places.
A comedian now on tour with a burlesulie
company does a recitative song that takes
immensely in some towns, while in others il
Is so little appreciated as To make him fee
abeshed. IL contains the information tina,
when he sang that song in California the
audience flung sovereigns at him He re
peats this in so pointed way that his hear
ers can hardly fail to what he means
Sometimes they rise to his meaning at once
and pit and gallery pelt him with pence
Unless they do this there is no point in the
lines that follow. When the audience is slow
to assist him with his business" coins arr
flung from the wings just to give them g
start, but the hint is not always taken
Political songs succeed and fail in the same
way. Some audiences are taken by them
that they insist ON having them over again
from beginning to end. Other audiences re
sent the introduction of politics with hisses
and shouts of No politics. On the whole
the safest hit in pantomine is the topica
song that is oil about the election of tn.
board of guardians, or the town band, or tn,
disappearance of the grocer round the cor
ner, or the way in which the streets are lit
That appeals to gallery and dress circl
alike stalls are not common i'll the prov
incesl and as soon as the comedian arrives il
the town for rehearsals he sets to work &.
acquire the local gossip--St- James Gazette